They knew, in that moment, they had been played. They had agreed to a match they believed would test his limits and perhaps humble him, but he had turned it into a brutal, undeniable demonstration of overwhelming supremacy. He was not playing their game. He was showing them he could break it.
Seeing the Sitri peerage on the verge of being utterly crushed and frozen within their own failing barrier, their energies depleting rapidly, Tobirama moved. In a flash of Body Flicker technique, he was beside the trembling, ice-encased dome. His hands moved in a series of complex, blindingly fast seals. "Ninja Art: Triple Rashomon Barrier Jutsu," he intoned, slamming his palm onto the frozen earth. Three massive, spectral, demon-faced gates erupted from the ground in a triangle around the Sitri shield, not touching it but superimposing a second, ancient, and incredibly durable barrier that reinforced the failing magical one just enough to withstand the final, crushing weight of the ice. The two-layered dome was now encased in a small mountain of blue, crystalline ice, but it held. The terrified faces of Sona and her peerage were visible within like insects in amber.
He descended from the sky, landing gracefully and silently before the trapped, terrified group. The ice around his own barrier receded at his will, creating a small, clear opening directly in front of Sona and her Queen, Tsubaki, who were the only two still conscious. Their bodies trembled from extreme strain, magical exhaustion, and primal fear. His expression was merciless, devoid of any triumph or gloating. It was the face of an executioner stating a simple fact.
"Give up. Or die," he said, his voice cold, flat, and absolute, carrying perfectly in the sudden, eerie silence that had followed the cataclysm.
Sona Sitri, her glasses cracked, her uniform scorched, her pride shattered but still flickering, could only snarl. No words came. Only the raw, defiant sound of a king who refused to break even as everything crumbled around her.
He did not say anything more. He did not need to. The time for words was over. Now was the time for a statement written in pure, unadulterated power. His left hand extended forward, palm open as if to grasp the very fabric of reality before him. His right hand drew back beside his face, his fingers curling with impossible precision, poised as if he were nocking an arrow on an invisible, divine bowstring.
Then, the atmosphere around him twisted. It was not a trick of the light. It was a fundamental warping of space, a groaning of physics under a weight they were never meant to bear. From the void itself, swirling, violent orbs of negative energy, the absolute Power of Destruction, coalesced. They swarmed around his extended arm like furious, starved piranha, drawn to the immense will that commanded them. They did not simply gather. They compressed, condensing and shaping themselves under his iron control into a single, pulsating, black-and-purple arrow of pure annihilation. It throbbed with a malevolent heartbeat, a concentration of entropy that promised to unmake anything it touched.
But he was not done. The demonstration required a final, impossible flourish. From his other hand, or perhaps from his very core, a different energy erupted. Phoenix fire, brilliant, golden, and brimming with the essence of rebirth and endless life, roared to life. But instead of healing, it was bent to a new purpose. It surged forward, not to oppose the arrow of destruction, but to sheath it. The golden flames wove around the pulsating black arrow, creating a terrifying, contradictory corona, a halo of creation surrounding a nucleus of oblivion. The two opposing forces did not cancel each other out. They coexisted in a violent, unstable, and awe-inspiring synergy, held in check only by his indomitable will. At that moment, illuminated by this dichotomous power, his eyes glowing royal purple and his void-black hair whipping in the self-generated energy storm, he looked less like a devil and more like a true demon god of legend, a primordial force given form.
The audience, momentarily silenced by the cataclysm of the first spell, now broke into an uproar that shook the very foundations of the observation decks. The shock was no longer just about power. It was about the impossible. He wielded both the Power of Phoenix and the Power of Destruction. Two forces that were cosmic opposites, the essence of life and the end of it, existing in harmony within a single being. Such a thing was unheard of, a paradox made flesh.
Sirzechs Lucifer's usual mask of serene amusement was completely gone. In its place was a look of genuine, profound, and unadulterated happiness, a pure, uncomplicated joy that lit up his features. His deepest, most private wish, to free his beloved sister Rias from her odious engagement, was now not just a hope but a tangible, impending reality. With a devil of such unique, unprecedented power emerging publicly, the political pressure for Rias to marry Riser would not just evaporate. It would be incinerated. No one would dare suggest the heiress of the Gremory clan marry a mere Phenex when a phenomenon like this existed, a devil who might one day rival the Satans themselves.
Riser, watching from the Phenex family box, had an ugly expression of pure, unhinged jealousy and hatred contorting his pretty-boy features. His victory, his status as the new heir, felt like ashes in his mouth. He was being shown, in the most brutal way possible, what true power looked like, and it rendered his own abilities pathetic and insignificant. The humiliation was a physical pain. His hands gripped the railing until his knuckles went white, but no one in his box dared speak to him. They knew better.
The other clan heads and ancient devils were stunned into a new kind of silence, a deep, calculating one. They realized with dawning clarity that Sirzechs had become a Satan not merely because of the raw power he possessed, but because of his proper control over the wildly destructive energy. He, however, was demonstrating a level of shaping and manipulation that seemed just as formidable, if not more audacious. He was not just controlling the Power of Destruction. He was blending it, forcing it to cooperate with its natural enemy, molding it into a weapon of terrifying and precise artistry.
One, two. You could almost see the calculations flashing behind the eyes of every faction leader, their minds racing to assess the geopolitical earthquake this young devil represented. Alliances, threats, opportunities. The entire board had just been flipped over.
And Zekram Bael. The ancient King was no longer merely interested, no longer just amused. He was leaning so far forward he was almost over the railing of his balcony. A low, eager sound rumbled in his chest. He was getting more and more excited, his eyes alight with a fierce, possessive pride. This was no longer just a potential recruit. This was a validation of his entire bloodline's philosophy. This was a predator seeing a cub that had not just revealed the claws of a king but had also proven it had the cunning to dip them in a unique and deadly venom. His grandson beside him shifted uncomfortably, but Zekram did not notice. His attention was fixed entirely on the figure below.
Just as he released the technique, his fingers springing open, the arrow of fused destruction and creation screaming across the short distance toward its helpless target, Ajuka moved.
As the appointed judge, his duty to prevent fatalities overrode all else. He did not run or fly. He simply ceased to be in one location and flickered into existence at the precise point between the incoming attack and the trembling barrier protecting Sona's peerage. He raised a single hand, calm and utterly focused. A complex, multi-layered, four-dimensional magic circle, a testament to his genius, bloomed before his palm like a flower made of pure data and light. There was no colossal explosion. The devastating arrow simply shattered against the flawless defense, its impossible energy unraveling and dissipating into the air with a sound like a sigh, harmlessly absorbed by Ajuka's impeccable spellwork.
But the aftermath of the blocked attack was itself telling. Where the arrow had been aimed, nothing remained. The map of the training ground below the trajectory was simply gone, erased from existence as if it had never been. The message was clear. If Ajuka had not intervened, Sona and her entire peerage would have ceased to be.
The victory was not just his. It was total, absolute, and devastating. The message, written in fire, ice, and annihilation, had been delivered to every devil, every clan, every Satan, and every king watching. He was here, and he would not be ignored.